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Subject Specialists: Scholarly Publishing

Author's Addenda

Author's addenda are for creating additions to licenses when negotiating contracts with publishers.

Institutional Repository

The Institutional Repository at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) is an open access digital repository for published and unpublished material created by members of the UNBC community. Its aim is to showcase and preserve UNBC’s unique intellectual output by making content freely available to anyone, anywhere, via the Internet. As a service of the UNBC Library, the Institutional Repository provides researchers with a free, secure, and long-term home for the presentation, dissemination, and preservation of their research and scholarship. By utilizing the Institutional Repository, researchers ensure their work achieves compliance with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.

UNBC's Digital Institutional Repository is hosted through Arca (a network of institutional repositories throughout BC) and includes graduate projects, theses and dissertations, a small number of faculty publications and a few reports. We are in the early stages of building a robust repository hosting locally produced research and scholarly works.

More information about UNBC’s Institutional Repository see our FAQs page and the policies regarding who can upload materials and what can be uploaded. Further details or other questions can be directed to repository@unbc.ca.  

Research Data Management

Sharing research data and making a Data Management Plan are often required by funders and publishers to promote open scholarship. The UNBC Dataverse through Scholars Portal is available to deposit your research data. Please see the Research Data Management Guide for details and contact the Data Services Librarian with any questions.

Evaluating an Open Access Journal: Tips

The following list is from Mount Allison Libraries Open Access Guide. These considerations can be used to evaluate both OA and non-OA journals.

  1. Who sent you this call for articles?  If it came from a stranger, you may wish to be more thorough in your evaluation of this publication. If it was sent to you by a friend or colleague, ask them what experience they have with this journal, and if they can vouch for its publishing standards.
  2. Who is the publisher? Is there full, verifiable contact information on their website? No address given on the website or misleading information about the country of origin are red flags.
  3. What is the publisher's mandate? Not-for-profit publishers are more likely to have the advancement of scholarship as a motive than making a profit.
  4. What is this journal/publisher's reputation among your peers? Is this journal recognized by your peers as being reliable and relevant to your area of research?
  5. Has this publisher/journal been identified as questionable by others? A quick online search may bring up exchanges about specific journals and publishers. See also the list of suspected predatory journals and publishers by U. of Colorado librarian, Jeffrey Beall at:  http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
  6. For open access (OA) journals, is the publisher a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)? This organization is a recognized advocate and promoter of OA publishing and has produced a Code of Conduct for OA publishers. However, newer publishers may not yet be included, and OASPA membership alone may not be sufficient to ascertain reliability.
  7. Does the publisher have an archiving or preservation policy? Examples of established archiving services include Portico or LOCKSS.
  8. Is the OA journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? Journals are required to meet a certain number of criteria in order to be included in the DOAJ (see selection criteria). In addition, the DOAJ announced in 2013 that it will add a "DOAJ Seal" for those with the highest standards, which will be a helpful tool in assessing journals. Note: There is a delay for new journals to be added to the DOAJ.
  9. Does the journal have an impact factor? How high is the impact factor? The most common impact factor is from Thompson-Reuters' Journal Citation Reports, but there are others, such as the Eigenfactor and the SCImago Journal Rank indicator. Impact factors are produced using several years' data, so these will not be available for newer journals. While the value of impact factors in general is debatable, beware of false metrics. See Beall's list of Misleading Metrics.
  10. What peer review measures are in place for this journal?  The peer review process should be described on the journal's website, and should be consistent with the usual process in your field. In the case of a newer journal, you may want to contact members of the editorial board to ask about their peer review process.
  11. How qualified is the editorial board of the journal?  The journal's website should list the members of its editorial board, as well as their academic credentials and affiliations. You should be able to verify that these people are credible editors for this discipline. (There have been cases where individuals have been added to a list of editors without their consent.)
  12. Is the journal indexed in major databases or index services? The journal's articles should be indexed in Web of Science or in your field's respected indexes (e.g. PubMed, CINAHL, ERIC, MLA International Bibliography). Inclusion in Google Scholar should not be taken as an indication of reliability. If the journal's website does not include this information, you can check Ulrich's Periodical Directory in the library reference section (Z 6941 .U55 REF).
  13. How many issues have been published since the journal started? The journal's publication record should be consistent and reliable.
  14. What is the journal's acceptance procedure? How long did it take for the journal to accept your paper for publication? (Immediate acceptance may be cause for concern.)
  15. Are the articles in the journal of the calibre you would expect? Are they on-topic? Are the article topics appropriate for the journal's thematic scope? Is the writing at the level that you would expect for a scholarly journal? Who are the authors? Are they all from the same institution or a small group? Have these articles been cited by reputable authors in reputable journals? (Citation counts can be checked in Web of Science and Google Scholar.)

UNBC APC Waivers

Currently the following publishers provide discounts to UNBC scholars for APCs:

American Chemical Society Microbiology Society
Cambridge University Press Oxford University Press
Canadian Science Publishing Royal Society of Chemistry
Elsevier Sage
IEEE Taylor & Francis
Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development Wiley
Journal of City, Climate Policy and Economy  

UNBC Library has signed a license (2022-2024) with the American Chemical Society to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a $250 USD flat discount.  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.


UNBC Library has signed a license with Cambridge University Press (2022-2024) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors uncapped, no-cost Open Access publishing in all hybrid and gold OA Cambridge journals (including journals in the "Cambridge Prisms" and "Research Directions" series).  Cambridge uses an automated system so UNBC authors only need to identify themselves as affiliated with UNBC to have the APC waiver applied.  See Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing Open Access in Cambridge Journals.


UNBC Library has signed a license with Canadian Science Publishing (2023-2025) for unlimited Open Access publishing in 5 selected journals:

  1. Biochemistry and Cell Biology
  2. Canadian Journal of Physics
  3. Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
  4. Genome
  5. Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering

For the remaining CSP journals, Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors receive a 25% APC discount.  Authors must indicate their institutional affiliation upon submitting of their manuscript in order to benefit from the discount.  The following Gold OA journals are not eligible for the 25% discount:

  • Arctic Science,
  • Drone Systems and Applications, and
  • FACETS. 

UNBC Library has signed a license with Elsevier (2024-2026) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 100% discount on APCs for hybrid journals and 20% discount on Gold (native) OA journals (reducing to 15% in 2025-26 and 10% in 2027).   APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript . Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.  Please review the author workflow.  Several journals are excluded from the APC waiver, such as Cell Press, Lancet, and some other society owned journals. Click here to view the list of titles included in this agreement.

 

 

UNBC Library has signed a license (2025) with the IEEE to offer UNBC-affiliated authors a 15% APC discount. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.  There is likely to be a confusing process whereby authors request funding from the Library, which the Library will then decline (as we don't have funding for APCs specifically).  The request will then be returned to the author and the 15% discount applied.  Please get in touch with Heather Empey with any questions.


JAFSCD (Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development) is now Open Access and the $500 APC is waived as the Library is a "shareholder".


 Journal of City, Climate, Policy, and Economy is now Open Access and the APC is waived as the Library is a "subscribe to open" (S2O) member.


UNBC Library has signed a "publish and read" license with the Microbiology Society (2025-2027).  This license covers unlimited OA publishing: any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be OA by default with no APCs.

Microbiology Society titles include:


UNBC Library has signed a license with Oxford University Press (2024-2026) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 100% discount on APCs for hybrid journals and 10% discount on Gold (native) OA journals.  Upon article acceptance for publication in a hybrid journal, the corresponding author will begin the publication workflow process within OUP's system. A customized message notifies the author upon login that their accepted article is eligible for open access at no cost (will refer to their institution and CRKN as providers) and the default selection for the author is to publish the article open access at no charge. Authors must identify themselves as affiliated with a participating CRKN institution in order for their article to be verified and approved for no charge OA under the agreement. An autocomplete form will populate with institutional affiliations as the author types, and the institution names are pulled from the Ringgold institutional hierarchy.  Please review the step-by-step guide to open access publishing for authors.  A list of eligible hybrid journals is available for download here

 

UNBC Library has signed a license with the Royal Society of Chemistry (2025-2027) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)--affilated authors a 100% APC waiver in all RSC hybrid and gold journals.  The APC waiver process should be automatic following the steps below:

  • Author submits article to a hybrid RSC journal following the standard process.
  • On acceptance of the manuscript, authors receive an email with a link to the licensing system.
  • The system automatically identifies the eligibility of the author based on the email domain (authors must use their institutional email in order to qualify for the discount).
  • The author selects either the standard license (subscription article) or Open Access license.  If the author chooses Open Access, they are given the option of two Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY or CC-BY NC).

UNBC Library has signed a license with SAGE (2024-2026) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors a 100% discount on APCs for hybrid journals and 40% discount on Gold (native) OA journals. SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) is a centralized portal that automates SAGE's open access publication process. The following steps briefly outline the manuscript submission process. Please consult the user guide which outlines the author’s workflow and the article acceptance process.

  1. Authors must indicate their institution affiliation upon manuscript submission. Authors are encouraged to also use an email with an institutional domain to facilitate the identification of eligible articles.
  2. Once an article is accepted, the author will receive an email notification if their article is eligible under the terms of this agreement. For articles accepted in gold open access journals, the APC discount is automatically applied upon acceptance of manuscript.
  3. Authors can accept or decline to publish their article open access from within the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP). If an author declines to publish in open access, their article will be published via the subscription route.
  4. Authors can also select their copyright license and assign a payer (i.e. funding agency, institution, or a different bill payer), and make the APC payment from within the Portal.

The list of SAGE Choice hybrid journals eligible to have their APC fees waived for open access publication is available here. The list of gold OA journals eligible to receive the 40% discount on APC fees is available here.


UNBC Library has signed a license (2025-2026) with Taylor & Francis to offer UNBC-affiliated authors a 25% APC discount for T&F Open Select (hybrid) journals. Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.  Please review the details of this agreement as well as a list of eligible Open Select journals.


UNBC Library has signed a license with Wiley (2025-2026) to offer Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN)-affiliated authors uncapped, no-cost Open Access publishing in all hybrid Wiley journals and a 10% discount on Gold (native) OA journals. (see Wiley Hybrid Journal title list at the bottom of this page)  APC discount is applied upon submission of manuscript . Authors must identify their institutional affiliation in order to qualify for the discount.  Please review the step-by-step guide to open access publishing for authors.  A list of eligible hybrid journals is available for download here